


Ghost in the Machine

by likethenight



Category: Ant-Man (2015), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ant-Man (2015) Post-Credits Scene, Captain America: Civil War Trailer, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 15:59:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6085936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likethenight/pseuds/likethenight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier doesn't know how long he's been trapped in the warehouse. He's mostly convinced the men who have found him are here to end him - but why is one of them so familiar, and why do they not seem in too much of a hurry to finish him off?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost in the Machine

**Author's Note:**

> A Winter-Soldier's-eye-view of my fic _[In At The Deep End](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4500963)_...it's already been at least partly jossed by the _Civil War_ trailers, so it's probably time to get it posted before the movie comes out and josses the rest of it!

The Winter Soldier isn’t really sure exactly how he ended up here, in this abandoned warehouse, with his left arm caught fast in some enormous piece of machinery. He isn’t sure how long he’s been here either; he’s been zoning in and out, struggling with the jagged-edged pieces of his memories. 

He knows the two men who discover him, though. Well, he remembers them. Sort of. The man with the shield, who’d called him that name, what was it, Lucky, Jacky, _something_ like that. And the man with the wings, the one he’d thrown off the edge of that great flying aircraft carrier. He has the feeling he ought to remember more about the man with the shield, but it’s not coming to him. So he just stares at them, blankly, if they’ve come to put an end to him then he’s damned if he’ll show them anything on his face.

The man with the shield tries to talk to him, tries to coax some kind of recognition out of him, and the Soldier really doesn’t know what he’s trying to achieve, but he hears his own voice grating out the guy’s mother’s name and something to do with newspapers in their shoes, something he’s dredged up from somewhere in the depths of his mind without even really realizing he was doing it. He doesn’t know where it came from and there are no images in his mind to go with it, no recognition, just a couple of bare facts, but it seems to be enough for the shield guy, at least if the pained but somehow relieved expression on his face is anything to go by. The Soldier doesn’t quite have the heart to tell him he has no idea what he just said.

The two men exchange a few sentences in urgent undertones, and then the one with the shield pulls out a phone and places a call, and the one with the wings - well, without the wings, just at this moment, the Soldier can’t see them on him - he takes out his own phone and taps out a message. The Soldier can’t make out what he’s saying, but he seems a tiny bit less tense once he’s done. Another few words exchanged, and the man without the wings taps out another message. Then they both put their phones away.

And then they settle down to wait, although the Soldier isn’t sure what they’re waiting for; but it’s clear that they’re waiting for something, not just standing there. The man with the shield looks as though he wants to talk to the Soldier, but something is holding him back. The Soldier doesn’t zone out again, not now he isn’t alone, but he still isn’t sure how many hours have passed when he hears a brief roaring, whining noise outside, like a large engine. It shuts off almost as suddenly as it began, and shortly afterwards two more people join them. Another man, fairly nondescript-looking, and a woman, red-haired and wearing black, and the Soldier feels the same as he does when he looks at the man with the shield, like he should remember her, somehow. Well. No. She was there on the bridge. She tried to garrotte him, and she shut his arm down for a moment, somehow. He is now more than ever convinced that they are here to end him.

Another brief, rapid, hushed conversation ensues and the nondescript man scuttles behind a pillar, emerging a minute or two later dressed in something that looks like a one-piece leather motorcycle suit, with a helmet under his arm that certainly does not look like a motorcycle helmet. The Soldier rolls his eyes instinctively, the thought ‘not another of those superhero goons’ flashing across his brain without him really knowing why. 

The one in the motorcycle suit puts his helmet on and steps up in front of the Soldier and says something to him, something about _Sergeant Barnes_ and _sir_ and _honor_ and the Soldier just looks at him, no recognition on his face, nothing that might indicate that he understands that the man’s words are for him. 

Then the goon in the suit leaps forward at him and it’s all the Soldier can do not to flinch, but then he _disappears_ and the Soldier blinks once, twice, and then he feels something tiny but incredibly dense landing on his left arm. He turns his head, and there is the goon in the suit, in miniature, running towards the machinery holding his arm in place, and the Soldier is taken aback despite himself, despite everything he’s seen and done over his long life, all the things he can’t remember, all the things he recalls in shattered fragments, someone who can shrink is entirely outside his experience. He thinks so, anyway. Not that he should really be surprised, there are enough other wonders in the world these days that an idiot in motorcycle leathers who can shrink is surely not the most improbable.

The Soldier catches the red-haired woman murmuring “He doesn’t know who he is,” and he has to bite his teeth together hard not to snort in derision. He knows damn well who he is. He is the Winter Soldier, the ghost in the machine, the legendary assassin. And. Maybe. Something else. Some _one_ else. But there, he has to admit, she’s right. He has to confess that he doesn’t know who _that_ is.

His enhanced hearing picks up the faint babbling of the miniature idiot, tripping over his tongue to apologize, but he tunes it out. Either this guy can get him out of here, or he’ll get them all blown to kingdom come. It’s all the same to the Soldier, at this point.

It isn’t long before the goon in the suit is standing at the point where the machine is connected directly into the Soldier’s arm. More faint babbling, and then the redhead says two words in Russian and swears. He’s found the kill switch, then. The Soldier has learned to ignore the kill switch over the decades. It was largely symbolic, anyway, for all that it was completely functional. It wouldn’t work for him, and anyone trying to apply it would have about thirty seconds before they stopped breathing for good, but still it was there, and finally it seems to have found its purpose. The Soldier zones out the muttered conversation around him, the relayed information that the man with the star and the shield seems to feel he has to pass on. None of it has any relevance. Either the miniature idiot can disable it, or he can’t. 

There’s some clanking and creaking and a clicking noise, and the Soldier tenses despite himself, bracing for the end, but it doesn’t come and he realizes that his shoulders are aching, locked tight and tense and he doesn’t quite know how long he’s been like that. He can’t feel the little guy on his arm any more, and going by the echo of his voice in the machine, he’s somewhere deep inside it. Which probably means that - 

“I don’t know if this shit’s rigged to blow, or to break the glass and poison us all, or what,” comes the goon’s voice over the communicators, faintly but clearly enough for the Soldier’s enhanced hearing to pick it up. So yes, he’s discovered the second booby trap in this whole setup. 

“It’s both,” the Soldier hears himself saying. He’s not sure why he’s helping here, since they’re probably going to take him away and do worse to him than his HYDRA captors ever did, because that’s what all captors do, isn’t it? Better to let them fuck it up and blow them all to kingdom come, including him. “I watched them fit it,” he continues, each word measured and painful with the dryness in his throat. “They talked. Thought maybe I wasn’t listening. Didn’t understand. Anything happens, transmitter sparks, charges break the glass, gas incapacitates anyone nearby. Then, gas ignites, whole building goes up. And before you ask, no, I don’t know how to disable it.” He draws a breath, inwardly confused, he hasn’t spoken so much in one go in longer than he can remember - not that that’s much of an indication. And again something flashes into his mind, drops words into his mouth that escape him before he even knows they’re there. “Need Dernier for this one.”

“Dernier,” says shield-guy, “you remember?” and the hope in his voice is almost pathetic, except now the Soldier can remember hitting him in the face while he yelled ‘to the end of the line’ over and over and those words hitched on something deep inside him, they _meant_ something though he can’t remember what. 

“Not the time, Stevie,” he says, the name falling from his tongue as naturally as though he always knew it, though at the same time he’s thinking ‘Stevie? Is that his name? Who the hell is Stevie?’ and trying not to think about why the look on shield-guy’s face is sending dull shock-waves of memory shuddering through him, not actual memories, not events or faces or names, but _feelings_ , things the Soldier had forgotten existed, things like loyalty and trust and _brothers_ and _love_. “Tell your little buddy he needs to be fucking careful.”

The miniature idiot asks whoever’s listening to thank the Soldier for his information, although he uses that name again, Sergeant Barnes, which sparks absolutely no recognition whatsoever within the Soldier. Shield-guy relays the message, although the Soldier had already heard it, of course, and he grunts and rolls his eyes and zones out again because if the idiot is really gong to blow them all to kingdom come, he’d rather not be thinking about it when it actually happens. There’s some more muttered conferring, a long speech from the miniature idiot, more conferring, more clanking, what sounds like a whole load of dicking around, then the Soldier feels those dense footsteps on his arm again and the goon appears out of the machine to take a pair of pliers from the redhead. And then there’s a click, and the Soldier tenses again - and again there’s nothing. No gas, no explosion, nothing. Then more clicking and clanking and then he feels the pressure easing off the kill switch; he’d forgotten how it felt not to have it pushed into the plates of his arm. It’s about time he learned to deactivate that thing and get rid of it. 

Next thing he knows the miniature goon is back to a full-sized goon, pulling off his helmet and looking rattled, as shield-guy prises the machine apart, just enough for the Soldier to pull his arm out of it, though he can’t do it fast, his shoulder muscles are definitely locked tight. He moves stiffly and painfully, needing the big guy’s help to stand up slowly once his arm is completely free of the device and trying to at least rotate his shoulders, though he steps out of the guy’s reach as soon as he’s steady on his feet. His muscles scream, he hasn’t felt this rough in a long time, and for a brief moment he finds himself contemplating how blissful it would be to step into the cryochamber and sleep it off, just close his eyes and wake up when all his injuries had repaired themselves. But it’s only a brief flash, and it brings with it a metallic taste in his mouth and the sound of his own screams in his ears, electricity crackling through his veins, and he dismisses it firmly, almost violently. Those days are over, and now he heals his hurts himself. He does everything for himself. Including leaving these people for dust, if he can just get his body to obey enough to get out of here before they notice he’s gone. 

Fat chance, of course. The Soldier’s not at his best, and between shield-guy’s speed and obviously enhanced hearing, and the redhead’s supernatural powers of observation - she always was a sharp one, comes another memory, dropping into his head with no context or explanation - he’s outmanned and outgunned. So he accepts his fate, and steps forward to thank the normal-sized goon - he might be brainwashed and amnesiac, but he still has manners, shakes the kid’s hand and all before the flying guy and the shield guy step up one on each side of him to walk him out of the building. It occurs to him that they’ve gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to rescue him, so either they want all the information they think he knows and will do whatever it takes to get it - good luck with that, he can’t remember anything on demand, near enough, not at the moment, his brain is on the fritz and it’s only giving him what it feels like giving him, seems like - or they genuinely want to help him. With his luck it’s the former, but something about their demeanor makes him wonder whether it might be the latter. The Winter Soldier has no practical experience of hope, but he knows what it is, and he thinks this might be it, so he goes along with them without a fight, and he dares to allow himself to hope that these guys know who he is and won’t kill or torture him for it - and also that they might just let him have a hot bath and a sleep in a halfway comfortable bed. Beyond that, he doesn’t know.


End file.
